Angara wants state funds devoted to rural development

Sen. Edgardo Angara called yesterday for a funding freeze on major urban projects so state funds could be fully devoted to rural areas currently reeling from an El Nino-induced dry spell.

Angara said the dry spell and the dying rural economy is a valid and acceptable reason for the shift in spending priorities.

"The urban areas are resilient enough. The rural areas are on the verge of collapse and despair," he explained.

He pointed out that majority of the country’s more than 30 million poor are in the rural areas that have been starving for jobs, investments and economic opportunities.

"Philippine poverty has a rural face. Any effort at poverty alleviation should start with the rural areas," he stressed.

Angara, a former agriculture secretary, said a massive and sustained rural investment and development program will benefit the agriculture sector most, and this means abundant and cheap food supply.

"Abundant and cheap food supply is the best deterrent against social unrest and political turmoil, as demonstrated by Thailand when it was hard hit by a financial crisis in 1997," he added.

Angara said that the magnitude of the rural crisis has yet to be officially reported, but "the hard realities betray all government claims on growth and economic stability."

Meanwhile, the Pangasinan provincial government has allocated P25 million more for the rehabilitation of irrigation facilities to lessen the effect of the El Niño phenomenon on agriculture in the province.

Jose Almendares, provincial agriculturist, said the additional fund will be drawn from the P350-million credit line obtained by Pangasinan from the Land Bank of the Philippines following talks between Gov. Victor Agbayani and Landbank president Margarito Teves.

Agbayani is optimistic that 13 more irrigation projects with a coverage area of 1,443 hectares would be completed by the end of this year out of the Landbank loan.

The province has already completed the rehabilitation of nine communal irrigation facilities and is about to complete eight more this year. — Efren Danao, Cesar Ramirez